Sunday Ticket - Annual Negotiation Thread

[Gsam]

Thanks for that link. I may have to place another phone call.

You just need to get through to retention to get a better deal. Say cancel at the voice prompt. If you get asked additional questions you are on the right path. Say cancel again and then not due to moving. It does not matter if you are under contract or not if you pay your bill on time and have a decent package with them. I will post more later but there are alot better deals out there going on for people in contract. See here http://www.dbstalk.com/topic/202500-...t#entry3163891

[Chronic_Toker]

Wow, had no idea about the Madden 25 and Sunday Ticket deal!

[joshjr]

You bet. You really should make another call. If you get to a good retention rep, you will get a great offer. There are alot of people posting in that other forum about getting Sunday Ticket free and bill credits. Here are some of the credits they are getting.

$20 off the base package for 6 or 12 months.
$15 off the base package for 15 months.
10 off the HD fee for 6 or 12 months.
10 off the Sports Pack for 3 or 6 months.
Free premiums

[broncolassiter]

In my opinion that is a narrow point of view. The NFL makes a ton of money off of the local affiliates for airing local games on Sunday's. That is why the NFL wants it exclusive for one provider. Do you think FOX and CBS would be happy if every provider out there gave everyone the choice to watch a different game? I imagine the local affiliates would lose revenue from customers not watching their station. Also, for what it's worth, DirecTV has raised their rates yearly but not monthly. The only thing that has changed that has been some RSN feeds popping up but their rates change yearly.

How would local stations lose money? Sunday ticket is just local stations from another area. There are enough fans around the country of other teams that it would balance out. Sunday Ticket would still be a subscription, it would just be available with other providers as well as Direct. It would create more competition with all the providers. Competition is healthy! Direct has other rules I don't like as well; Go to Best Buy and purchase a second DVR Receiver for $150+ and if you cancel your subscription, they demand that you send them the box that you paid for. I will never have someone force me to give away an item that I purchased. Direct would be the only ones losing money if the Ticket were available with other providers, in the end it would balance out. It would force providers to treat customers better to keep them as a customer. I dealt with Direct for years and it was a constant hassle. My local cable provider gives me internet, phone and TV for about the same price I paid Direct just for TV.

[atwaterandstir]

Any luck if you are a new customer?

[cooperkayd]

Hey all,

Not sure where in the country you are at, but I'm in OK, so I usually get the Chiefs games televised locally. Also if they play Dallas, which they do this year, it will be televised. But here's the thing: I paid for the Sunday Ticket last year and lo and behold, all but like 3 games were televised nationally! If I could do it over, I would have saved my money and gone out to a sports bar for the handful of games that weren't already on the national slate. Do I think it will be the same way this year? Absolutely! We have Peyton Manning under center - an automatic ratings draw. AND we should have another great season. So MOST of the Broncos games should be on the national slate this year. I'm going to save my money and just eat out a few times at places that have the Sunday Ticket, rather than pay $200 for a handful of games that won't make the national broadcast.

[CoryWinget81]

I got Sunday Ticket Max HD, a new genie and genie mini, all the channels including hbo and cinemax (The Newsroom and Strike Back baby!) for 140 a month for six months, and 110 thereafter.

I think I won the fight.

[joshjr]

How would local stations lose money? Sunday ticket is just local stations from another area. There are enough fans around the country of other teams that it would balance out. Sunday Ticket would still be a subscription, it would just be available with other providers as well as Direct. It would create more competition with all the providers. Competition is healthy! Direct has other rules I don't like as well; Go to Best Buy and purchase a second DVR Receiver for $150+ and if you cancel your subscription, they demand that you send them the box that you paid for. I will never have someone force me to give away an item that I purchased. Direct would be the only ones losing money if the Ticket were available with other providers, in the end it would balance out. It would force providers to treat customers better to keep them as a customer. I dealt with Direct for years and it was a constant hassle. My local cable provider gives me internet, phone and TV for about the same price I paid Direct just for TV.

Your missing the point. The local broadcasters are wanting paid to have commercials seen by people who live local. It would not help that someone half way across the US is able to view that game. Ad revenue would suffer and the networks would have to make up that money somehow. They would not want to pay the NFL as much and since in your opinion Sunday Ticket would lower, who do you think the local broadcasters and the NFL are going to want to get that extra money from?

As for the buying a DirecTV receiver from Best Buy, that is still an up front lease fee and they do own it. I can tell you I have 15 tuners on my account (1 Genie and 5 HD DVR's) and I own all of them but the Genie. I only paid $460 for all of them. It can be done and at a decent cost.

[joshjr]

Any luck if you are a new customer?

A new customer should be able to still. If you just started out, tell them you missed out on the promo and want to try it. See what they will do.

[joshjr]

Hey all,

Not sure where in the country you are at, but I'm in OK, so I usually get the Chiefs games televised locally. Also if they play Dallas, which they do this year, it will be televised. But here's the thing: I paid for the Sunday Ticket last year and lo and behold, all but like 3 games were televised nationally! If I could do it over, I would have saved my money and gone out to a sports bar for the handful of games that weren't already on the national slate. Do I think it will be the same way this year? Absolutely! We have Peyton Manning under center - an automatic ratings draw. AND we should have another great season. So MOST of the Broncos games should be on the national slate this year. I'm going to save my money and just eat out a few times at places that have the Sunday Ticket, rather than pay $200 for a handful of games that won't make the national broadcast.

I understand. Most on that other site I posted about are getting Sunday Ticket for free so its up to you. If you are willing to make the call and get to Retention, you to can get a deal as long as you pay your bill on time and have a decent package (not lowest level).

[KoolBreeze]

It doesn't matter if you have a contract or not. I signed up last year on a 2 year commitment. First time I called (after the auto renew) a few weeks ago they offered me Sunday Ticket + Max for 6 payments of $29.99. I told them no and they canceled it. I called back a couple weeks later and asked about it again and they said it would be full price since I'd cancelled it. I laughed and said ok, then just cancel the entire service and I'll box everything up and send it to ya! They informed me that if I did that, I'd be hit with a $300 cancellation fee. I said, "No problem, I'll pay the fee." That blew her mind and she was like, "What?!?! It would cost you more to do that then to just pay full price for the package!". I said, "Yep, but I'm hard headed that way and this ticks me off. So you can just turn it off and I'll go back to cable, and keep my $125 per month I'm paying for your service." She promptly send me to someone else whom told me that while he could not offer me a discount on Sunday Ticket, what he could do is charge me full price on it and then give me a $15 per month credit on my account for 6 months effectively reducing it to $22 per month. I told him that I didn't really like playing games, but since I LOVED football I guess I'd take it.

[joshjr]

Most don't have to take it that far as long as you pay on time and have a decent package. They can give it free or charge certain amounts and apply bill credits to the account. Just calling, getting to retention and letting them know you are reading online a lot of people are getting Sunday Ticket for free will work. Let them know that you like Sunday Ticket or want to try it and see what they say. One piece of advice would be to not take the first offer because usually they will see if they can get you to pay something. My response is usually well others are getting it for free and I want to see if I can do the same. They look a little more and then come up with a better offer.

[DenverBlood]

Lol at Sunday ticket being a monopoly by the NFL. Someone makes this complaint every year and they clearly don't understand what a monopoly is.

First off NFL isn't making their entire product exclusive. Just the part that gets you access to any game you want.

However you have the options to see up to 6 games a week through your cable provider and you can even see 3 a week free through CBS or Fox if you go ancient an just use an antenna.

There is no law that says they have to license the rest of the games to everyone. No part of that is a monopoly.

And they aren't the only ones who do it. I don't even know why people complain about this. Last I checked you can't get every single game all season long for college. Not even through ESPN Gameplan which is offered to multiple carriers.

And each college conference has their networks set up. That is licensing their entire conference to 1 network. But hey guess what you can still watch some of that conferences games on regular ESPN. Just not every game. But noone is complaining about that.

All other sports have similar deals usually with 1 provider.


Now that I'm done venting I'm glad this thread exists. I'll be calling within a couple of days to see what I can negotiate.

[Iron Clady]

Got Sunday Ticket Max for free. $250 off the Genie. Whole home upgrade for free. $25 off the bill for a year. And two months of HBO, Showtime, etc.

[Hadez]

I just got off phone with Direct TV

They gave me

Free ST Package (everything) with a 1 year commitment
$20 general monthy discount for 12 mo
$15 general monthy discount for 15 mo
50% discount for the "Startz" movie channel pkg for 12 mo
Free Upgrade to Genie + Home (should be getting HR44 box but she said could not be guaranteed by her) with a 2 year commitment (why not sounds fun to try it) for $3 / month

Also getting a internet upgrade (had DSL setup on lines over 10 years old) because current ISP irritating me. Could not get this for free but if I figure in what I will save after canceling current service it is a good deal. This will be $6 / month as fastest rate available 45 mbs

You just need to get through to retention to get a better deal. Say cancel at the voice prompt. If you get asked additional questions you are on the right path. Say cancel again and then not due to moving. It does not matter if you are under contract or not if you pay your bill on time and have a decent package with them. I will post more later but there are alot better deals out there going on for people in contract. See here http://www.dbstalk.com/topic/202500-...t#entry3163891

CP ya for the link. I feel having that knowledge saved time and negative negotiations I really did not want to go through